Flat-panel displays are widely used in conjunction with computing devices, in mobile devices, and for entertainment devices such as televisions. Such displays typically employ an array of pixels distributed over a display substrate to display images, graphics, or text. In a color display, each pixel includes light emitters that emit light of different colors, such as red, green, and blue.
Flat-panel display substrates are manufactured using photolithographic processes to define conductive wires and thin-film circuits on the display substrate. Typically, the thin-film circuits control the pixels in the array and a matrix-addressing scheme is used to address the pixels with controllers external to the pixel array. The matrix-addressing scheme generally has row lines arranged across the display substrate in a row direction and column lines arranged across the display substrate in a column direction orthogonal to the row direction. One of the row lines is used to select a row of pixels while the column lines, in parallel, provide data to each of the pixels in the selected row (or vice versa).
The row and column lines must be electrically separate to properly select a row of pixels and provide individual pixel values to each of the pixels in the rows. To maintain electrical isolation between the row and column lines, the row lines are typically formed in a separate layer on or over the display substrate from the column lines. Vias are provided as necessary to enable electrical connections to any row or column lines.
The formation of patterned electrical conductors in a display substrate layer requires multiple photolithographic steps, such as blanket coating the display substrate with a metal layer, blanket coating a photoresist over the metal layer, exposing the photoresist to patterned illumination through a mask to pattern-wise cure the photoresist, developing the photoresist, etching the exposed pattern of metal, and removing the photoresist. Additional planarization layers can be performed and vias through such layers constructed using further photolithographic steps.
Photolithographic processing, although well understood and widely employed in the display industry, is expensive, particular for very large displays (e.g., having a two-meter or larger diagonal) across which very tight tolerances (e.g. within several microns) must be maintained.
Electrical jumpers are known in the electronics industry and typically refers to a short length of electrical conductor used to close, open, or bypass portions of an electrical circuit with exposed jumper pins or contact points on a printed circuit board. Such jumpers typically have a size of a few millimeters and are used to configure or set up printed circuit boards. Jumpers are generally installed by hand or with robotic assembly. Similarly, dual-in-line packages (DIP) switches provide a comparable function with switches and are generally operable by humans. In consequence, such electronic interconnection devices are limited in number and, especially, size on a typical substrate.
There remains a need, therefore, for devices, such as displays, having simplified structures that are easier to make with fewer steps at a lower cost.